


Altruism or Survival

by Palipitoad



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Violence, F/F, Such a rarepair honestly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 02:10:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13649253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palipitoad/pseuds/Palipitoad
Summary: Having woken up in an unfamiliar and strange place, Claudette Morel is forced to explore the abandoned suburban street, known as Lampkin Lane, unknowing of the horrors that await her.





	Altruism or Survival

**Author's Note:**

> I know that the DbD fandom is kinda dead at this point, but I really wanted to write this lol. Just like usual, I'm very bad with procrastination and whatnot, so don't expect the next chapter to be out within a week (tho I'll try my best to get it done as fast as possible if this fic gets even a little bit of notoriety). This is gonna be a very story-heavy fanfic, so it's gonna be quite long and it's not gonna be very smutty or fluffy, though considering that the pairing featured is basically so rare that it's nonexistent, I doubt that anyone clicked on this fic to read it for the ship itself lmao. Also, this story isn't 100% faithful to the original game. I took a few small liberties with the source material, but I don't think it'll bother people too much. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this fic and stick around for the next few chapters!

Darkness. Claudette couldn’t see anything as she slowly regained consciousness. “What happened?”, she thought to herself. Both her mind and body felt strangely light, like she was floating on water. Laying flat on her back, she felt her drenched clothes stick to her body and the soft touch of dewy grass on the palms of her hands . She tried to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt extremely heavy. At the moment, her only reliable sense was her hearing, but even then, there was barely anything to be heard. Slightly perturbed, she attempted to move her arms, her legs, her fingers, anything, but to no avail. “What the hell happened?”, she asked herself again. “And where am I?”.There was no sign of life, nothing to be heard. No voices or even the peppy chirping of birds, nothing. A soft breeze blew through the air made the leaves on the trees rustle, the cold air grazing her wet face like tiny, sharp knives. “I’m freezing”, she thought. “Is no one going to help me up?”. She attempted to open her mouth and call out for someone. Her lips parted only slightly as she spoke. “He…”. Her voice was barely audible and clearly hoarse, sounding more like a dying animal than anything close to human. Her vocal cords burned, despite her attempt at speaking being very short-lived. “I guess I’ll just wait until-“.

But without her own volition, Claudette’s eyes shot open. Her heart skipped a beat as the world abruptly came into view. Despite having been passed out for what seemed like quite a while, she was suddenly wide-awake. Still, her body felt strangely sluggish, as if someone had violently woken her up from a long, comfortable nap. She slowly stood up, using a large oak tree that stood next to her as a support. Her legs wobbled like she was a newborn calf, but, with quite some struggle, she eventually got up. With one hand against the rough bark of the oak, she looked at herself. She was soaked and her clothes were absolutely trashed. Torn, dirty and drenched. Luckily, her glasses were completely fine. Immediately, she checked the pockets of her pink button-up and her jeans, only to find a bundle of random keys and a smart phone with no reception. While messing around with the phone, Claudette studied her surroundings. 

Towering next to her was a blue, normal-looking house, but on closer inspection, cracks and mold dominated the surface of the wall. The murky green must stretching from the top of the dirty white wall all the way down made the wall appear almost like a map, it was practically a miracle the house hadn’t already caved in on itself. On the opposite side were white picket fences and an array of perfectly shaped square hedges blocking her view. Under her feet laid neatly cut, dark green grass. Somehow, the state of the hedges and grass suggested that there were still people living there, but the decrepit look of the house implied otherwise. It was dark and her vision was blurry, but she could make out the faint shape of a few houses and a street some few feet straight ahead of her. 

“Where …. am I?”, Claudette wondered, completely puzzled by her current circumstances. Without much thought, she hobbled over to the street, despite still feeling quite dazed. She limply crawled over the white fences like a mindless zombie, hoping to find someone who could explain to her where she was. As she reached the street, the only thing that was present, were cars, awkwardly parked on seemingly random spots on the road. Red and blue lights illuminated the dim night, the consecutive flashing making Claudette feel almost nauseous. The source was a police car parked directly into one of the hedges. Or maybe it had crashed? She wasn’t sure, because the car seemed to be working fine and there were barely any dents or scratches on it. Claudette slowly spinned around, her head still clouded, taking in her mysterious surroundings. It looked like any everyday, normal American neighborhood at night, yet something about it felt eerie. Claudette could imagine adults walking down the sidewalk on their way to work; kids playing in the street, yelling “car!” whenever one would approach. But now, it was nothing more than a ghost town in the process of being reclaimed by nature. She looked up and saw a dark night sky just as she suspected. Despite the foreign environment, looking up at the sky felt like seeing a familiar face, a good friend of some sorts, even when the darkness did nothing but add to the already sinister nature of the neighborhood. The sight of the starlit sky conjured up vague memories within Claudette about counting stars when she was little. “One, two, three, four”, she mouthed as she stared blankly at the endless sea of bright astral bodies. But her attention was quickly pulled away by a lone street sign, standing near the road. It looked just as decrepit as the houses, covered in rust and dents, but the sign clearly read “Lampkin Lane”. At least she knew where she was, but she had never heard of any “Lampkin Lane”. “Did I used to live here or something?”, she questioned. She took another look at the concrete road, her sight slowly following it to its conclusion, a brick wall. “Wait, what?”, she thought to herself. “A brick wall?”. She squinted her eyes to confirm her suspicion. She wasn’t mistaken. The street abruptly ended before reaching the wall. The wall wasn’t extremely huge, Claudette estimated it to be roughly 15 feet tall, but it seemed unlikely that an escape would be easy. Especially considering the barbed wire that was wrapped around metal bars that were protruding from the top of the wall. She turned her head to the right and saw a similar brick wall at the back of the row of houses. To her left, she was met with another brick wall. Finally to the back of her, was something different. A large, closed metal door. It looked old and battered. “Why would there be a….”. Then realization hit her like a truck. She was trapped.

She felt an overwhelming sense of helplessness at the mercy of whoever put her there. How she even got into that “cage” she wasn’t sure. All she wanted was to just get out of it. Anxiety grew and her breathing became faster and shallow as her heart was beating out of her chest. The world felt like it warped around Claudette, engulfing her. Everything that was happening felt so out of her control, she felt like a zoo animal, something to be gawked at by her captor. Her knees gave in and she sank to the floor, her arms tightly wrapped around her shaking body. All she hoped for was someone who would wake her up from this terrible nightmare she was having. She opened her mouth to scream, but the words still couldn’t leave her trembling lips as she stared wide eyed at the cracks in the concrete. Tears welled up in her eyes and she started sobbing silently, overrun with a sense of despair and isolation. She wanted so desperately to believe that it was just a bad dream, a nightmare she’d eventually wake up from, but it felt all too real. The cold air brushing against her; the wet clothes uncomfortably stuck to her skin; the tears rolling down her cheek. She knew that it was real and that she couldn’t escape from it. Fully given into her own despair, she cried for minutes on end, her throat growing more painful by the second from all the quiet, pained groans. But under the sound of her continuous bawling, Claudette thought she heard something. It sounded rhythmic and soft, yet echoed through the desolate neighborhood. It sounded like footsteps.

Her head jolted up, her tight grip around herself loosening. The familiar sound immediately broke her out of her trance like spell. She stood up, stumbling clumsily in the process, and quickly wiped away her tears. She ran towards the sidewalk and grabbed ahold of one of the tall trees lining the street. From behind the large oak, she peeked at the source of the noise, her hands firmly on the bark. A dark figure of a man harshly illuminated by the street lights. A tall man at that. The strange slapping sound of his footsteps seemed to indicate he was barefoot. He also seemed to be holding something, but Claudette couldn’t make out what it was. It looked thin with a bulbous end, like some sort of gigantic pestle. It could be anything for all she cared. At the moment, he was her only glimmer of hope in such a bleak, dire situation. She approached the shadowy shape without hesitation, an innocent, unknowing smile plastered on her face. She drew closer to the figure, his back still turned to her. On closer inspection, Claudette started doubting her decision. The man was incredibly tall. Irregularly tall. He looked like he was almost 7 feet. His shoulders were broad, this combined with his height made him quite imposing. He seemed to be wearing some sort of poncho that barely reached past his chest and, instead of trousers, dirty bandages wrapped all the way from his thighs to his ankles. Not only that, but he was standing almost completely still. She swore that she could hear his slow, ragged breathing, but his entire body remained stationary. As the figure grew closer with every step, uneasiness grew. Every step taken made the pressure Claudette felt more intense. So intense, that it gave her a headache. So intense, that the leaves on the trees seemingly stopped rustling. Slowly, everything went quiet. The only thing she heard, was the quick beats of her own heart, pounding furiously in her ear. 

Suddenly, she stopped, only a few feet away from the mysterious figure. His massive physique towered menacingly over her, his pained breaths even louder than before, sounding less human and more animal-like. Scared to the point where the hairs on the back of her neck were standing straight up, she stared wide-eyed at the back of the man’s head, confirming her suspicion. His skin didn’t look normal, it looked like the bark of a tree. Not only that, but several branches were protruding from his head. She wanted to run. Her entire body was telling her to leave, but her legs had practically turned to stone. With sweat dripping down her face, she watched as the man slowly turned to face her. But before she could find out, she was abruptly pulled away. As she fell, she instinctively closed her eyes, bracing for the impact of the ground. Yet, her landing was soft. Hitting the ground with a soft thump, like a pillow caught her fall, she panicked and opened her mouth to scream for help. Immediately, her mouth got covered by a cold hand. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”, Claudette thought as she struggled to get away from her captor’s grip. “Shhh!”, she heard, feeling the hot breath of the person behind her on her neck. She complied and stopped struggling. Claudette looked around. “Leaves”. She had been pulled into the bushes by whoever she was laying on, someone who she could only assume was her “savior”. A hand appeared next to her and pointed in the direction of the man outside of the bushes. 

She looked at the man’s face, or at least what looked roughly like a face. It had features such as a nose and lips, but it was completely wooden. It wasn’t like a mask, it was his actual face. In his dark eye sockets sat small, glowing eyes and in his hand was a club. Not just any ordinary club, but one decorated with a human skull and spine. The man, or more aptly said the “thing”, hadn’t noticed Claudette, but it kept completely still in front of the bushes. She was still in incredible danger. One look towards the young girl hiding in the bushes and she was dead. Leaning back against the person covering her mouth, she felt their body pressed against her back. Weirdly enough, this made Claudette less scared even though it made no difference whatsoever. Though the speed at which their heart beat, which Claudette could feel pounding through their chest, didn’t exactly make her feel very comfortable. The hand covering her mouth was trembling and its grip was tight on her face. Her “savior” was obviously just as scared as she was. The man’s head suddenly and quickly turned away from her and the pained gasps that were coming from the thing stopped. As if it saw something infinitely more interesting than Claudette, it ran towards one of the abandoned houses, entered it and disappeared out of sight. Her heart rate returned to normal and a deep sigh escaped from Claudette. The person she was laying on removed their hand from her mouth and spoke. “What the hell were you doing?”, a raspy voice angrily whispered. She turned around and faced a pale-skinned girl, her expression angry, with short, dark hair protruding from under a the left side of a gray beanie. The girl pushed Claudette off of her and responded to her own question. “Do you want to get killed or something?”, she said with a slight hint of a scandinavian accent. Claudette paused, not quite sure how to respond, staring dumbfounded at the girl in front of her. She looked the stranger up and down. She was wearing a flannel blouse, with under it a gray t-shirt; black, ripped jeans with a chain attached to it; and black trainers, which looked beat-up and dirty. Realizing she was staring at her, Claudette quickly answered. “Oh! Uh, I, no?”, was all she managed to squeeze out. The girl sighed. “Look, just follow me. I know where the exit is” and immediately, she took off towards the back of the houses. Claudette quickly got up and followed the girl like she said, every once in a while anxiously glancing behind her. 

Walking slightly hunched over, the girl lightly jogged towards the wall and took a right, sticking closely to the brick wall. “You cover the back, I’ll do the front”, she said without looking back at Claudette. “C-Could you at least explain to me where we are right now?”. “No fucking clue”. “Then how about that, uh, guy?”. “Don’t know”. “Oh. Then, uhm, what’s your name?”. “Nea”. She anticipated the same question is response, but got nothing in return. The only thing she could glean from the conversation was that Nea knew just as little about where she was and what was happening as Claudette, which wasn’t exactly comforting. She would’ve preferred someone who was a little less frigid, someone would’ve reassured her that they had a plan and that everything was going to be fine, even if it wasn’t the time nor place for that. Then again, the reassurance of a person who knew that they weren’t actually fine probably wouldn’t have been as comforting as Claudette expected. The help of a cold, yet honest person was still much better than being slaughter by a psycho killer. “Are there other people here? I mean, other people like us”. Nea paused. “If they’re not dead, yeah”. “Oh, yeah, r-right”, Claudette said, unsure of how to respond to something so disheartening. “Don’t worry about the others”, she responded. “Worry about yourself first”. “That’s a bit selfish”, she wanted to say. Did she really not care at all about the safety of the other people? Although that probably meant that the person or group of people that came with Nea weren’t her friends or family, but instead strangers. Still, more people meant more opportunities for answers. All she could hope for were people who were more willing to talk. Claudette was determined to find out where they were and who brought them there. Though in that moment, everything seemed to suggest a killers game of hide and seek. A twisted individuals “fun”. It would’ve explained the walls boxing Nea, Claudette and the supposed other people in and the fact that seemingly none of them knew where they were, but there were still so many unanswered questions. How did the killer make that “cage”? What is the killer? Are they working alone? And most importantly, why? What’s the point of kidnapping people and subjecting them to a life-or-death game?

“There it is”, Nea said, the words pulling Claudette out of her own head. She stopped and hid behind a tree, Claudette followed suit. Nea pointed at a huge, square hole in the wall. Claudette immediately recognized it. “That big, metal door”, she recalled. It seemed someone had opened it, Nea maybe? “Right there”. “That’s the exit, right?”, she questioned. “Then shouldn’t we just leave?”. Nea’s hand suddenly shot up as if to shush Claudette. She went quiet, the rustling leaves on the trees being the only thing breaking the silence. She looked questioningly at Nea, whose head was turned halfway towards her. She looked past her at the door. Nothing, nobody was there. Yet Nea didn’t seem keen on leaving. Was she not as hell-bent on survival as Claudette had expected? “Something’s not right”. Nea shuffled closer towards the tree, turned towards Claudette and said “The killer’s there”. Claudette’s heart skipped a beat. “W-What? Where? How do you know?”. “It’s just a feeling, but I know he’s there”. Both Claudette and Nea stared silently at the gateway, unsure of what to do. Though it could’ve been possible that Nea’s hunch was mistaken, neither of them were very keen on finding out. “Is there another door maybe?”, Claudette hesitantly asked. “Yeah, but that one’s not open yet and opening one of those big ass doors takes a while”. Claudette sighed. “Well, actually”, Nea continued. “There’s supposed to be an escape hatch around here somewhere”. “Really? Then let’s go there!”, she said, consciously skipping past the question of why there would be an escape hatch in what was possibly a murderer’s playground. “Probably not gonna work. I don’t know where it is and last time I tried it, it just wouldn’t open”. As expected, it wouldn’t have been that easy. “Wait”, she suddenly thought. “Last time?”. At first, Claudette thought that she might’ve misunderstood Nea, but if it meant what she thought it meant, then it wasn’t the first time for Nea to end up in a their situation. “No wonder she’s so calm, I just thought it was her personality”, she thought. 

“Look!”, Nea whispered as she tapped Claudette on the shoulder. She looked up at the door and saw something she didn’t expect. Not the killer, but another person. From behind the hedges at the back of the houses right next to the door, a scared looking guy with short, brown hair and glasses appeared. Very slowly, he was making his way over to the doorway, hiding for a few seconds behind every tree he passed. His white button-up had noticeable cuts on it, possibly from an altercation with the killer. He seemed to hesitate as he approached the door, sticking close to the wall next to the gateway. Finally, he peeked around the corner. His shoulder immediately slumped down and he made his way quickly through the door. “See, it’s fine. Let’s just go-”, but as Claudette spoke, a loud scream erupted. The guy that they had assumed escaped, now with a mortified expression on his face and tears in his eyes, ran back to the back the hedge he appeared from. As he ran, Claudette noticed a large slash along his right arm, accompanied by blood. A lot of blood. So much so, that that what was left of his right sleeve was covered in it. As he ran leaving a trail of crimson red, suddenly a figure appeared from the doorway. The killer. Claudette’s heart was beating out of her chest. She had to do something. She had to save him. But she couldn’t. She was shaking as she stared wide eyed at the monster, repressing the urge to scream. Then, she heard the sound of a bell being rang and he was gone. Just as he had so suddenly appeared, he left. “W-Wha….”, was all she managed to utter in her shaky voice. “Was that camouflage? Or maybe teleportation?”, Nea said. “Ugh, whatever. Let’s go”. Nea grabbed Claudette by the arm and pulled her along.

Claudette stared blankly at Nea as they ran toward the door, still speechless, but she quickly pulled herself out of it. “Wait!”, but Nea kept on running and her grip on Claudette’s arm was tight. As they passed through the big, metal doors, Claudette finally wiggled herself free from Nea’s grasp. “We have to do something! We can’t just leave him here to die!”, she protested. She immediately turned around in the other direction and ran back, but quickly, Nea grabbed her shoulder. “Are you crazy?”, she said angrily, putting her other hand on Claudette’s shoulder. “You’ll just die, don’t waste this opportunity!”. A loud, blood-curdling scream erupted, startling both girls. “And just let that guy die? I can’t let that happen!”. She tried to wiggle herself free yet again out of Nea’s grasp, but Nea showed no resistance and let her go easily. She did another 180 and ran down the street, not bothering to look back. As she ran down the deserted road, she frantically looked around for any sign of the killer. While it was highly likely that she would’ve been killed, she felt more invigorated than ever before. It was her one chance to actually do something important with her life. A chance to save someone from death. She was determined to not let it slip past her, even if she had to do it on her own. Nearing the end of the road, she saw the brick wall trapping them inside and still no sign of the injured man. 

“Uhhh….”. A soft groan could be heard. A hopeful smile appeared on her face. “Where are you?”, she whispered while frantically scanning the area for the source. No answer. “Uhm, hello?”, which was firmly greeted with, yet again, no response. Claudette began to worry that she might’ve been too late or that, somehow, the guy didn’t believe her to be trusted. “Uh, don’t worry, I can patch you back up. Just, just tell me where you are so we can get out of here!”. Again, nothing. The smile quickly disappeared from Claudette’s face as the injured man kept silent. The question of whether or not she was already too late kept haunting her thoughts, accompanied with a sense of dread and helplessness. “Maybe Nea was right”, she wondered. “Ruuun….”, a pained voiced said. Claudette turned towards the source of the sound and saw a bloodied arm grasping at the bark of a tree. Immediately, she ran towards it, but was quickly stopped by the voice. “Run….”. She knew that that meant that the killer was possibly nearby and that the guy was trying to save her from an obvious trap, but her conviction was too strong for her to just leave. And yet, she stopped dead in her track, trembling at the thought of the killer being close. Looking towards where she saw the bloodied arm, she noticed that the injured man was already standing up, his head down and leaning against the tree. He raised his head and yelled, “RUN!, as something slammed into his head from behind.

As the object made impact with his head, his skull made a loud, grisly crack as he went completely limp. Crimson blood trickled down his face, contrasting heavily with his pale skin. His dead body was lifted above the ground, stuck to the thing which had killed him, dangling like a puppet with no strings. From behind the corpse, the perpetrator materialized from seemingly nothing, accompanied by the ringing bell Claudette had heard before. A hand formed around the hilt of the weapon, growing out into a full arm, and feet suddenly stood on the dark green grass, quickly forming into a set of long, slender legs. It wasn’t long before the murderer was in full view, a hauntingly familiar face. 

Claudette was in complete shock. She felt paralyzed by the mere presence of the inhuman “thing” before her, staring her down with its white, glowing eyes which pierced directly through her soul. The killer studied its already dead victim up and down like a researcher observing their specimen. It placed its hand on the corpses head, violently ripped its weapon from its prey and slowly turned its head to Claudette. Blood flew directly towards her, landing on her face and clothes. She knew it was intentional. Whether it was a threat or a way to mark her, the message was loud and clear. “This is what I’m going to do to you too”. The thought immediately activated her fight-or-flight response. She turned around and ran as fast as she could. Looking behind her, she saw the killer running towards her; its brutal, bloodied weapon in one hand; the dead body in the other; and its eyes fixed on its prey, Claudette. She ran with tears in her eyes towards the exit, praying to whatever god or divine being that was out there to save her. Having no time to dwell on her actions, all her regrets came weighting down on her at once, which she let out in a loud, guttural scream. “HELP ME!”, she cried out. “PLEASE GOD, HELP ME!”. If only she hadn’t tried to help. If only she had listened to Nea. If only she had escaped when she had the chance. If only she had. If only. She had abandoned her survival for kindness and now, that kindness would be the death of her as she realized the killer was gaining up on her. The gate was in full view and yet so far. With the killer almost having caught up to her, it would’ve been impossible to make it. But, like a guardian angel, Nea appeared from the gate, running towards her. “Grab my hand!”, she yelled. The sight of her filled Claudette with an indescribable determination and she ran with all her energy towards her. She sprinted with last bit of stamina she had, sweat dripping down her forehead, and extended her hand towards Nea, who quickly grabbed it and started pulling her towards their escape. Claudette almost passed out, her grip from Nea’s hand getting weaker and her vision getting foggier and foggier. The world felt like it was going in slow-motion, every second getting dragged out to an eternity. Every step like she was running at the bottom of the ocean. But eventually, they made it. They ran through the gates, the blade of the murderer grazing the back of Claudette’s shirt. They ran further into the woods beyond the gates and Nea looked at Claudette with a smile on her face. She spoke, but Claudette couldn’t hear it. Looking back at the gate, she saw it staring back at her. The 7 foot tall monster stood still, not passing beyond the exit. Maybe it was because she was nearly passing out or because she just imagined it, but the eyes that stared back at her told a sad, horrific story, though she was unsure of what that story was. Then suddenly, her vision turned white and her legs gave out. Her consciousness faded quickly after.


End file.
